World Classics
4 total works
This collection brings together some of the best and most frequently performed plays by John Arden and Margaretta D'Arcy whose collaboration stems from the political years of the Sixties The Business of Good Government is a nativity play which develops a sense of a disappearing community; Ars Longa Vita Brevis is composed out of children's games and The Royal Pardon tells the story of the adventures of a group of strolling players who fall in with a deserter from the war in Flanders. Other plays in this collection such as Little Gray Home in the West and The Vandaleur's Folly arise from the highly charged political arena of the 1970s in Ireland.Arden and D'Arcy have been consistently interested in using drama to extend the very boundaries of national identity and human freedom.
"Arden is to me a writer a bit like Shakespeare in approach, in that the writing not only has to convey...the dialogue of characters speaking together, but also has to carry the sense of the social environment and the texture of people's lives." This second volume of John Arden's plays includes works from the 1960s. Armstrong's Last Goodnight, although set in 16th century Scotland, sheds new light on the experience of conscript soldiers at the tail end of colonialism in the 1960s; The Workhouse Donkey presents "not just a kaleidoscopic portrait of a living community; it also has the moral uncertainty of life itself" (Michael Billington The Guardian). Left-handed Liberty anatomises the disintegration of the feudal system under King John; while The True History of Squire Jonathan and his Unfortunate Treasure and the radio play The Bagman are based on real incidents, personal and political in Arden's own life. "Arden is a giant of modern playwriting. He writes on an epic scale that few have attained since, the plays tumble into action, and with vivid human response." (Dominic Dromgoole)